Born into a society tolerant of homosexuals, River Otter is confused by the white culture’s persecution of such men. As the war begins to wind down, Otter leaves the only home he has ever known to help Major James Morrow, commandant of Ft. Yanube, build a farm north of the fort. He begins a new life with the handsome major while coming to grips with growing hostility toward natives and rising danger from a local militia bent on eliminating all bloods from the territory.<br><br>As his physical attraction for the blond soldier slowly grows into a love perilous to both of them, Otter is distracted by personal challenges. As he struggles to survive the social and political upheaval sweeping the plains, can remain true to his own set of values?

River Otter

“Breech birth. They’re trying to turn the baby into position.” With that, he clamped his mouth shut and took up his scythe with a vengeance.


We finished the harvest before nightfall. The storm, a gully-washer holding ice pellets amongst the drumming raindrops, struck shortly thereafter. The day disappeared before its allotted time, snuffed out by thick, black clouds eclipsing the sun. This was the world James Andre Tiller greeted with a lusty bellow on October 5, 1868.


A few days later, word reached us that Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer had attacked Black Kettle’s Southern Cheyenne winter camp on the Wichita River in Indian Territory as a part of General Phil Sheridan’s Winter Offensive. Black Kettle had survived Chivington’s murderous assault at Sand Creek, but he, his wife Medicine Woman, and a large number of Cheyenne women, children, and warriors fell to Custer’s attack.


Chapter 97